For me all this was a horrible thought. So I did a lot of rubbish. I got caught steeling when I was 13. I skipped school and had to repeat one class. I drank a lot of alcohol and tried to do only what I enjoyed. The trouble at home became bigger and bigger. My parents didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand them. Their marriage also got worse and I stayed at home as seldom as possible.

I was interested in other things. Together with a friend I often went to bars and discos. We started to smoke hashish. I also had a boyfriend who was several years older than me. I was fascinated by this different world with those drugs, the music and that always being on the way. There was always some adventure. I felt sorry for those neatly going to school. I thought life was passing them by. When I was 17 years old I started smoking heroin and sometime later I injected it.

I just quitted school. Quite soon I was also physically addicted. Everything was focused on drugs. A lot of relationships and friendships broke. The fascination on drugs became an every day experience, everything was just repeating. Many "old friends" were sent to prison for a longer term, some of them died. It was a great shock for my parents when they found out, that their daughter was addicted to heroin. They often tried to help me. I really wanted to get out of it: I’ve been to hospitals, on withdrawal treatment and state therapy programmes. But nothing changed. When ever I was clean I felt a deep emptiness within me. I didn’t know how I could actually live. I had started taking drugs, because I didn’t want to live a senseless, narrow minded life. But then I realised that the drug also is just an illusion. There seemed to be nothing in-between. Finally I lived together with a guy, who had been imprisoned for several years, because of dealing drugs. There were enough drugs. But all the junk, I was living in, the trouble about the money, my dirty broken life, my crying parents and the constant fear – all that drove me crazy. Because of an overdose I ended up at my parents again. I did a withdrawal, even though I had no hope to be able to stop. One girl who wanted to help me in that situation, took me to Crossroads Prison and Rehabilitation Ministries.

I didn’t know what it was, I just went with her. I talked to Friedel Pfeiffer, the leader of the ministry, Hans and Dieter, who once had been drug addicted himself. While talking I realised I couldn’t hide before them. For the very first time I began to be honest about my life. To a lot of questions I couldn’t give any answer, e.g. "Who needs you?", "Whodoes really love you?". I realised I had nothing at all. They offered me to move into one of their families.

I moved to Dieter, who together with his wife and four children takes in especially women from addiction or prison. They told me Jesus could change me, if I’d ask him. First I didn’t understand that. I had never paid attention to the Christian faith before. I watched the others and found out that they really lived what they said. They had a charisma and there was a lot of love among them. I felt there was something different. Because I really wanted to get out of drugs I prayed one night: God, if you are really there, forgive my sin, all the rubbish I have done and please let me make a very new start.

Nothing incredible happened after that, but suddenly I felt a rest in me. That was something I hadn’t experienced for a long time. I had always been restless, always thought where I am, I’m at the wrong place. There must be a place, where there is more action. That had changed now. I could stay in one place, without running away.
Afterwards it were often the little things that almost hit me. When ever I couldn’t handle certain things, I’d rather would have just "plugged" my head. But all over sudden there was the awareness, that there is another possibility to find peace again. I learnt to talk with Jesus about my problems. I consider him to be a good friend, a father who also disciplines me. That gave me security and safety. I knew, nobody could take Jesus away, even if everything around me breaks off. I found a lot of friends. I’m grateful for these people, who are really honest to me, who point me to my mistakes, but yet still love me. I live here for six and a half years now without alcohol, cigarettes, drugs... It wasn’t always easy, because I often realised things within me that I cannot change. I cannot be nice or godly or let others correct me. But whenever I went to God in my inability, often crying, something changed.

During the time here I served an apprenticeship as a florist with success. The relationship to my parents got well again. I can talk with my father and my mother also decided for to live with Jesus Christ. She is busy giving help to broken people. Today I’m married and a mother and together with my husband I share my life with broken people. Together with a contactgroup I go to the women’s prison Köln-Ossendorf. There we talk to women, who have no hope anymore. A lot of them take drugs. I can tell them, that there is an answer in the Bible and a sense that makes life worth living. This is what I have experienced myself.